BOATS, TO THE COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NOT TO LEGISLATE IN
THE INTEREST OF THE ELECTRIC BOAT COMPANY'S
MONOPOLY, BUT TO GIVE HIM
A SQUARE DEAL"
38 Newton Street,
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY,
February 8, 1906,
HON. C. E. FOSS, _Chairman Committee on Naval Affairs, House of
Representatives_.
DEAR SIR:
I am the inventor of the Holland submarine boat, now in use in the
United States Navy and in Europe. My old patents, to the number
of about twenty, are owned by the Electric Boat Company. On June
16, 1900, I entered into a contract with that company to serve as
their engineer for five years, dating back to April 1, 1899, and
expiring April 1, 1904. Since the expiration of my contract with
the Electric Boat Company I have devoted myself to remedying the
defects in my old inventions, and perfecting designs by which the
low speed of the present Holland boats can be increased three or
four times. Having perfected these inventions until I was sure I
could obtain about 25 knots per hour submerged, and after making
numerous other alterations, greatly improving the efficiency
over my submarine boats now in use in the Navy, I procured the
organization of a company, "John P. Holland's Submarine Boat
Company," May 18, 1905, with sufficient capital to build a boat
under my new plans and inventions, and was about to start to work,
when the Electric Boat Company filed a suit against me in the Court
of Chancery of New Jersey, applying for an injunction, and claiming
substantially that I had agreed to assign to them all my inventions
and patents during the term of my natural life. Two other suits
have been started, one against my new company in the United States
Circuit Court to enjoin the use of the name "Holland"; the other
against me personally, alleging a verbal contract never to compete
with the Electric Boat Company, was commenced in the New Jersey
Court of Chancery. My contract with the Electric Boat Company to
act as their engineer, and to give them my patents and inventions,
was for the five years during which I acted as engineer, and no
longer, and expired April 1, 1904, as stated above.
These suits have had the effect of frightening off the capital that
I had enlisted, and I have not as yet been able to get the capital
to build my new boat, by reason of these suits. The only object of
these suits was to prevent me from building a boat and going into
competition before the Navy Department with the submarine boats now
being built by the Electric Boat Company under my old patents.
The Electric Boat Company makes the allegation in their last bill
of complaint that by threatening to discharge me from their employ
and break their contract with me and stop my salary, that I agreed
to a contract which prevents me from using my brains and inventive
talent in building submarine boats for the balance of my life. This
allegation is absolutely false, even though under affidavit by Mr.
Rice, and would be, if true, most inequitable on account of duress
and on account of want of consideration. This alleged agreement
was not reduced to writing; the only evidence the Court has is the
sworn statement of Mr. Rice; and when the fact is considered that
Mr. Rice, formerly a professor of law at Columbia University, and
having the assistance of Mr. Frost, also a lawyer, failed to have
such an important agreement reduced to writing and signed by me,
the whole proposition appears ridiculous and silly. The further
fact that this bill of complaint containing these allegations, has
been printed and distributed at the Capitol would seem to indicate
that the principal object of this suit is to frighten away the
capital I had enlisted, and prevent the consideration of my new
patents and claims by your honorable committee.
My attention has been called to the bill (H.R. 10070), entitled "A
Bill to Increase the Efficiency of the Navy." It must be apparent
to every member of your committee that this bill is drawn solely in
the interest of the Electric Boat Company monopoly. The clause in
it that "The Secretary of the Navy shall purchase or contract for
said submarine boats within four months of the completion of the
contract trials of the submarine boats now building for the Navy"
is against all public interest, and is something extremely unusual.
If the Electric Boat Company should not complete its contract
for a year or two years or never, the whole business of the Navy
Department in this line would be held up. The bill excludes me,
the inventor of the Holland boats and who constructed and built
the original _Holland_, which is now in the service of the Navy,
from submitting my plans and models to the Navy Department for
consideration, for it would be useless to do so if the Secretary
is deprived, by the proposed law suggested by the Electric Boat
Company, from adopting them, though considering them superior in
efficiency and economy to the plans upon which the present boats
are being built.
I have recently had my models tested in the government tanks at the
Navy Yard in Washington by the United States officers in charge,
and their official reports will show that I can get a guaranteed
speed of 22 knots per hour submerged, and the same speed on the
surface, and this speed can be obtained in vessels of the same
or greater tonnage as those now being built by the Electric Boat
Company.
I hardly think, Mr. Chairman, that your committee, in making an
appropriation for submarine boats, will exclude the Navy Department
from any consideration of the plans made by me when I say to you
that these plans have the approval of some of the most expert
officers in the Navy on the question of submarine boats, and that
the boats can be built at one-third less than is now being paid the
Electric Boat Company for boats of two-thirds less submerged and
more than fifty per cent. less surface speed.
If I am prevented by the suits filed against me by the Electric
Boat Company from obtaining capital with which to build my boats,
which will have three times the submerged speed of the present
boats, and a vast improvement in other directions, then I want the
law so framed that I can present a proposition to the Secretary
of the Navy to cause my plans and new inventions to be thoroughly
examined by a board of experts, and if favorably reported on,
that the government may build the same in its yards under my
supervision, and pay me a reasonable royalty. That is all I ask
your committee to do, and to not frame a law that will exclude
me, the inventor of the present submarine boats, from having my
improvements considered by the Secretary of the Navy, and pass one
in the interest of the Electric Boat Company under its monopoly
now of the business of the department under my old and obsolete
patents.
The title of the bill (H.R. 10070) should be: "A Bill to Prevent
the Increase of the Efficiency of the Navy, and Prevent Economy
Being Considered."
If your committee is desirous of increasing the efficiency of
submarine boats for the Navy, and at the same time reduce the cost
to the government at least one-third, if not one-half, of the
prices now being paid for submarine boats, a clause in the Naval
Appropriation Bill on the following lines would effect the object:
"The sum of _________ Dollars is hereby appropriated for submarine
boats, and the Secretary of the Navy is hereby authorized to
contract for or purchase or build in a navy yard of the United
States these submarine boats, whichever in his judgment will
increase the efficiency of the Navy and will be in the interest of
economy to the department."
I consider my old patents assigned to the Electric Boat Company as
obsolete; they are ten years behind the age.
I can build in the Navy Yard at Brooklyn boats under my new
patents, designs, and inventions, in six months, and guarantee a
submerged speed of 22 knots per hour.
Admiral Bowles testified before the Senate Committee on Naval
Affairs at its hearing on submarine boats. He was at that time
chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair of the Navy
Department, and his statement at that time is entitled to the
serious consideration of your committee, because it was that of
a government expert, and is true in every respect. This hearing
before the Senate committee is printed and the hearing took place
on May 29, 1902. Admiral Bowles's testimony can be found in Senate
Document 395, 1st Session, 57th Congress, page 82. He said that
the Holland boats ought not to cost more than $89,489, and in this
sum he said he had allowed an ample profit, and in addition had
included $11,000 for experiments and tests. Admiral Bowles is now
president of the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, and is building
the submarine boats that the Navy contracted for last year, and
they are now being built under my old plans and patents, so alleged.
If your committee will call upon the present Chief of the Bureau
of Construction and Repairs, he will undoubtedly inform you that
he can build in the Brooklyn Navy Yard my submarine boats as
quickly and as expeditiously as they can be built by the Fore River
Shipbuilding Company.
I am a poor man, while the Electric Boat Company has among its
principal stockholders three or four millionaires, including August
Belmont, Isaac L. Rice, and others. The capital stock of that
company is ten million dollars. They have deprived me, by their
flimsy lawsuit, from getting capital to build a boat under my new
inventions and patents, and are now asking Congress to pass a law
which will prevent the Navy Department from adopting my new plans
and inventions, even should the entire department consider that
they are far superior in every way to the plans now being used by
that department.
I do not believe that your committee will commit itself to this
monopoly which is against the interest of the government.
I am advised by my attorneys that as soon as the suits of the
Electric Boat Company can be reached and tried the Court will
undoubtedly dismiss them, but in the meanwhile they act as an
injunction against me, as they prevent my enlisting capital which
is timid and dreads a lawsuit.
Very respectfully,
Mr. Holland and I worked on entirely different lines in the development
of our respective types of boats, he being a consistent advocate of the
diving principle. He contended for many years that a submarine boat
should be built small in size and with little statical stability, so as
to dive quickly, while I have stood for great statical stability and
for methods of submerging the vessel bodily on a level keel instead
of diving at excessive and dangerous angles. I have never refused to
accede to him the credit of having been the man who first made the
diving type of submarine practical, and to acknowledge his genius and
attention to detail which overcame the difficulties which caused the
failure of many of his predecessors who attempted to build boats of the
diving type.
He died on August 12, 1914, just at the beginning of the present
European war, and consequently did not live to see the fulfilment
of his prophecy that the submarine would prove the superior of the
battleship if they ever became opponents in actual warfare.
My own experimental work began when I was a mere schoolboy. I had
become interested in the submarine by reading Jules Verne's "Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Shortly afterward I took up the study
of natural physics and became interested in the use of the diving
bell. Being an excellent swimmer and fond of boats, I spent most of
my vacation times on or about the water. I remember building a canvas
canoe from a description published in _Golden Days_. This canoe was
very "cranky," being only about eighteen inches wide and the sides
eighteen inches high. The only way I could learn to sit in the canvas
canoe was by ballasting her with pig iron and gradually reducing the
ballast as I became more expert, until finally I learned how to keep
an equilibrium and maintain the canoe upright. There was only one
other boy I remember in the village of Toms River, where I lived at
that time, who could ride this canoe, consequently some of the boat
men, when they saw it one day drifting bottom side up down the river,
came to the conclusion that I had been dumped out and drowned. When
they came alongside and righted the canoe they were much surprised
to find me in it. I had turned the canoe upside down and crawled up
into it, the air pressure keeping the water from rising into it. I had
crawled in there for the purpose of finding out how long I could live
on the volume of air contained within the canoe; in the meantime it was
drifting down the river.
Strange to say, the design of the submarine boat which I made at that
time, when I was only about fourteen years of age, contained most of
the elements which are being used successfully in the Lake type of
boat to-day: the use of the hydroplanes for control of depth, bottom
wheels for navigation over the bottom, and a diving compartment with
an air-lock so that the crew could enter or leave the vessel when
submerged. These plans were shown to my father at that time, who rather
discouraged me in the matter on the ground that submarine navigation
was something that great engineers had given a lot of attention to,
and that I had better give more attention to my regular school studies
than to fooling around with experiments of that nature--which was good
advice.
Consequently I did nothing further in the matter until 1892, when
my attention was called to an advertisement of the United States
Government for inventors to submit designs of submarines to the Navy
Department. Then I prepared plans which, in my judgment, would meet the
Department's requirements. I was still a youngster, and knew nothing
about the difficulties met by outsiders in getting hearings before
government officials in Washington. On the appointed day, in June,
1893, on which the bids were to be opened I appeared in Washington with
my plans and specifications under my arm, and was directed to the room
adjoining the Secretary's office, where a large number of people were
assembled. At this time I knew nothing of anyone else's experiments
in submarines, and thought that I was the first and only one. I was
consequently much disturbed to see so many people present. I sat down
on a lounge, and a young man a little older than myself sat down on the
lounge alongside of me and said to me, "Well, I suppose you are here
on the same errand as the rest of us; I see you have some plans, and
I suppose you have designs of a submarine boat which you are going to
submit." I said, "Yes, and I guess there are going to be a good many
plans submitted, judging by the number of people who are here." The
gentleman then said, "No, I only know of two others who are going to
submit plans: there is Mr. J. P. Holland, the gentleman standing over
there, and my father, Mr. George F. Baker, of Chicago."
He then explained that he was the son of Mr. Baker, the man who had
built the Baker boat, and whose experimental work was responsible
for the appropriation of $200,000 by the government for building a
submarine. I then said to him, "Well, then, who are all these other
gentlemen present? "He knew most of them and obligingly pointed
them out to me, saying, "There is Senator So-and-so and Congressman
So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so the great lawyer," etc. I then said
to myself, "Well, Lakey, it looks as though you were not going to
have much of a show here." I submitted my plans and specifications,
however, and returned to Baltimore and to my other business. I was
much surprised, therefore, to receive, some time afterward, a telegram
from the editor of the _New York Tribune_, a Mr. Hall, stating that
he had received information from Washington that my plans were looked
upon most favorably by the majority of the Naval Board and that they
were going to adopt my type of boat. He asked for an interview and a
description of the boat. I did not go over to Washington, expecting to
receive notice in good time that the award had been granted--which is
proof positive that I was still young and ignorant. Nothing further
was heard of the matter until I saw a notice in the paper that it had
been decided not to build any submarines at that time, and that the
matter had been postponed indefinitely. Some years afterward I met
the late Admiral Mathews, and he informed me then that he had been a
member of the board, and that four of the five members of that board
were in favor of adopting my type of boat and of having the government
start the development of a submarine on those lines, but that the
constructor of the board opposed it on the grounds that when the boat
was running on the bottom on wheels she might run off from a precipice
and go down head first, and reach so great a depth as to be crushed,
evidently not realizing that her great static stability and the use of
her hydroplanes would prevent this from happening. Anyway, they did not
arrive at a conclusion, and any action was postponed for the time being.
In the meantime Mr. George F. Baker, who had moved to Washington
in the full expectation of getting the contract, had died, and the
Holland Torpedo Boat Company had offered to build, under guarantee of
its performance, a boat to meet the department's desires. As I had no
company back of me, and, being only a youngster, was without capital
of my own, the department decided it was better for them to place a
contract under a definite guarantee of performance than to undertake to
develop a submarine themselves. I did not name any price for building
the boat at the time I submitted my plans, but expressed the desire to
coöperate with the government in any way that they wished. My youthful
hopes at that time were that if they considered my general plans worthy
of adoption I should be taken into the navy and given some sort of
a commission to work out the details of the boat. When I saw some
mention in the paper that the matter was to come up for consideration
again, I did, however, make a visit to the Navy Department, and
assuming, from my observation of the Senators, Congressmen, and
representative men who were present at the time of the first opening
of the bids, that it was necessary to have some sort of a standing, I
secured a letter of introduction from the governor of my native state,
New Jersey, who at that time was Mr. Leon Abbott, introducing me to
the gentleman who at that time was acting Secretary of the Navy, for
the purpose of finding out, if possible, whether I had any chances,
and the proper procedure to pursue in getting further consideration of
my invention. Presenting myself in the Secretary's office, I sent in
my letter of introduction, and the word came back that the Secretary
would see me in a few minutes. I waited in the ante-room for a couple
of hours, but no word came from the Secretary. Finally he appeared in
the doorway and said, "Now, gentlemen, I am going to my lunch, and will
be back at half-past two." I Went out to my lunch and was back in the
waiting room a little before half-past two, shortly after which the
Secretary came into the room, passed around, shook hands with every
one, and talked a minute or two with some of his visitors. When he
came to me he shook my hand, and I explained to him that I had sent in
a letter from Governor Abbott and had been awaiting an opportunity to
see him. His reply was, "I will see you in a few minutes." He returned
to his office; at four o'clock he appeared at the door again and said,
"Gentlemen, I will not be able to see any of you again to-day, as I
must now sign my mail."
I was on hand again the following morning, and notified the colored
man that I was still waiting for the interview which the Secretary had
promised me. The word came back that he would see me in a few minutes.
I waited all the morning; the noon hour came, and the Secretary then
stated that he was going out to lunch and would be back at half-past
two. Every one else who had appeared in the morning the day before had
been granted his interview and a new crowd was waiting. I was the only
chap who had "stood pat." By this time I was pretty much disgusted.
As I went out into the hall the Secretary came out of his door and,
putting his hand on my shoulder, said, "I am sorry to have kept you
waiting, but as soon as I have finished my lunch I will take up your
matter." You may be sure I was on hand, and after he returned he sent
for me. He called a colored man and said, "I want you to take this
young man down to Captain Sampson (afterward Admiral Sampson, who was
at that time head of the Bureau of Ordnance), and tell Captain Sampson
that Mr. Lake comes with a letter of introduction from the governor
of my state, and I want him to listen to what he has to say about
submarine boats, and report to me." This colored man, instead of taking
me to Captain Sampson, turned me over to another colored man, and did
not report the message which the Secretary had given him. This second
colored man took me to Captain Sampson's clerk, and finally I was
ushered into the Captain's presence and started to tell him about my
boat and its possibilities. He immediately assumed a bored expression,
turned his back to me, put his feet up on a chair, and said, "Well, go
ahead, but make it brief." I admit that I was pretty much tongue-tied
by this time, and I do not flatter myself that I impressed him in the
least degree, as his manner had the effect of a cold douche upon my
enthusiasm. I remember that as I walked out of the Navy Department I
vowed never to return until I was sent for, and I never did.
I now started making experiments on my own account, and built the
_Argonaut, Jr._, and later the _Argonaut_; and I did not return to
Washington until I was sent for by a telegram from the late Senator
Hale, at that time chairman of the Senate Navy Committee, asking me
to come to Washington and submit a proposition for building submarine
boats for the United States Government. I was never able to account for
my treatment in Washington until some time afterward, when I had an
office in New York. The former Acting Secretary had at this time left
the Navy Department and was practising his profession of law in New
York, where I believe he is still engaged.
Having some legal business at that time which I thought he might be
able to handle because of his experience in the Navy Department, I
called upon him in regard to it. He stated that, as he was then free,
he could handle it for me, and when I recalled my visit to him when
he was Secretary of the Navy he said he remembered it very well. He
laughingly remarked that I may have thought him a little slow in
receiving me at that time; and then explained that, previous to his
accepting the portfolio as assistant secretary of the navy, he had been
the attorney for a rival submarine boat company; that he knew all about
their boats, and the fact that they had expended large sums of money in
the development of submarines; and that, although he had resigned as
attorney for the company before he became acting secretary, perhaps his
former association with them had led him to give less consideration to
my proposition than he otherwise might have done.
As I believed the submarine to have great possibilities commercially
as well as for war, I gave up my other business and came to New York,
opened an office in the old Cheeseborough Building, and tried to secure
capital to build a commercial submarine. I advertised in the papers
and visited a number of capitalists in the effort to interest them,
but usually, after obtaining an interview, as soon as I asserted that
it was possible to navigate over the bottom of the ocean as readily
as it was over the land, and that when on the bottom I could open
a door in the boat but that no water would come in; and, further,
that divers could very readily pass in and out of this open door, I
observed in most cases a look of dread in their eyes and their hands
would slide over and push a button. An attendant immediately came to
the door and reminded Mr. "Blank," whoever he might be, that he had a
very important engagement or that some other visitor was waiting to see
him. Unfortunately for me, this was about the time that a madman had
attempted to bomb Russell Sage in his office.
The result was, that after spending six months and all of my savings
I had not raised a dollar. I then decided that it was necessary to
get some engineer of national prominence to endorse my project, so I
went to Charles H. Haswell, author of "Haswell's Handbook," and former
chief engineer of the United States Navy, and explained to him that
I wanted him to give me a professional opinion on the practicability
of my boat. I offered to submit him my plans of the boat--of which I
also had a model in the tank of water in the Cheeseborough Building
which I would like him to see, as I thus would be better able to
explain to him its method of navigating on the surface and submerging
beneath the surface and on the bottom itself. And I then asked him how
much he would charge me. He stated that he should want $1500 for the
investigation and opinion. By this time I had expended my savings and
hardly had $15--let alone $1500. I explained the situation frankly to
him, and he said, "Well, I will go down and look it over and give you
a report anyhow, and you can repay me at some future time when you are
able." He did so, and gave me a very excellent endorsement, but I found
that even his endorsement was not sufficient to induce capitalists
to invest their hard-earned money in any such crazy scheme as mine
appeared to them. I finally decided to build a small experimental boat
myself to demonstrate the two principal features over which almost
every one seemed to be sceptical. These were the ability to navigate
over the bottom of the ocean and the ability to enter and leave the
boat while submerged without any water coming in and foundering her.
I therefore gave up my office and moved down to Atlantic Highlands,
where, with the financial assistance of my uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs.
S. T. Champion, I was able to build the _Argonaut, Jr._ She was built
of yellow pine planking, double thick, lined with canvas laid between
the double layers of planking, the outer seams caulked and payed. She
was a flat-sided affair and would not stand great external pressure.
She was propelled when on the bottom by a man turning a crank on the
inside. Our compressed-air reservoir was a soda-water fountain tank.
The compressed-air pump was a plumber's hand-pump, by which means we
were able to compress the air in the tanks to a pressure of about one
hundred pounds per square inch.
My diving suit I built myself by shaping iron in the form of an open
helmet, which extended down as far as my breast; this I covered with
painted canvas. I used the dead-light from a yacht's cabin as my
eyeglass in front of the helmet. I tied sash weights to my legs to
hold me down on the bottom when walking in the vicinity of the boat. A
cousin, B. F. Champion, accompanied me on my first submerged run with
the _Argonaut_, which was in Blackfish Hole in the Shrewsbury River.
We submerged the boat alongside of a dock and started across stream in
the river. The first time we went under water a stream of water came
through a bolt-hole which had not been plugged and struck "Bart" on the
back of the neck. He said, "Ugh!" and made a dive. The _Argonaut_ had
a little port-hole in one end about six inches in diameter, and "Bart"
said afterward, "I made a dive for that port-hole, but came to the
conclusion that I could not get through, so I stopped." It was a simple
matter, however, to drive a plug in and stop the water from coming
in. On our first trip we ran across the river and back, and, although
there was a strong current in the river, she "backed" right back to her
starting place, having rested on the bottom firmly enough to prevent
the current from carrying her down stream.
[Illustration: "ARGONAUT, JR.," 1894
A small experimental boat built by the author to demonstrate the
practicability of wheeling over the bottom and of sending divers out
from the boat without water entering the vessel. She was propelled by
hand over the waterbed; she had an air lock and diver's compartment
which permitted egress and ingress of a diver when submerged.]
Later we took the boat up to Atlantic Highlands and had a lot of fun
running around on the bottom of New York Bay picking up clams and
oysters, etc. We finally decided to organize a company and build a
larger boat; so one day we invited the mayor of Atlantic Highlands,
the president of the bank, and a number of other prominent people
of the little community to witness our trials. A number of the
men wrote their names on a shingle, which was tied to a sash weight
and then thrown off the end of the Atlantic Highlands pier in about
sixteen feet of water. My cousin and I got into the boat, submerged
her, wheeled her forward to where the sash weight had been thrown
overboard, picked it up, and had it back on the dock again in five
minutes.
The performance of the _Argonaut, Jr._, becoming known, she received
no little newspaper notoriety. In looking over my old clippings I find
that there was a vein of scepticism and sarcasm running through most of
these early accounts of her performance. I just quote briefly from one
of the papers describing her, the _New York Herald_, of January 8, 1895:
THIS BOAT CRAWLS ALONG THE BOTTOM. AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT IT WAS TO
DO, BUT IT ESCAPES AND ASTONISHES FOLKS IN OCEANIC, N. J.
DRIFTS UP THE SHREWSBURY
IT WILL CRAWL FIVE MILES WITHOUT COMING UP TO BREATHE WHEN INVENTOR
LAKE COMPLETES IT. FUN FOR MERRY MERMEN.
"RED BANK, N. J., Jan. 8, 1895.--Strange things come in with the
tide in the ungodly hours of the night, and in the stillness of the
night strange things follow them, but the strange thing which came
up the North Shrewsbury a day or two ago, and which lies high and
dry on Barley Point, is a 'new one' on the good folk of Oceanic.
Now that they have fairly discovered it, they are sorry that it
didn't wobble ashore in the summer, when Normandie-by-the-Sea
below the Point is crowded with curious persons from the city. Any
enterprising Oceanic man might have fenced in the queer thing and
charged every one a quarter to see it."
The few substantial persons who had witnessed the _Argonaut's_
experiments provided the capital for the construction of the _Argonaut
First_ and enabled me to complete her, and she was launched on August
17, 1897. I had called the little experimental boat the _Argonaut,
Jr._, because it was born before its mother, although the mother (the
_Argonaut First_) had been conceived and designed first. I did not have
sufficient capital to go ahead with her construction, and even the
design of the _Argonaut_ itself was cut down to correspond to the size
of the subscriptions that we had been able to secure.
The raising of capital to most inventors is a serious problem; it has
always been so with me. I have always been interested in mechanical
accomplishments, but always dreaded the necessity of trying to raise
capital to carry on those experiments. I have never valued money for
itself or felt the need of it except when I did not have it. I think
this is the case with most inventors, which is the reason why so many
of them go to unscrupulous promoters who rob them of their inventions,
or else often tie them up so that they themselves are incapable of
continuing their development work.
Having made an initial success by my experiments, like most
unsophisticated inventors I also fell into the hands of a promoter
of this type. He was introduced to me by an officer of a bank, and,
after an investigation of my project, claimed that he could raise all
the money necessary to float a project of this kind, which in his
judgment had the greatest possibilities of anything he had ever learned
of. He said that his friends, the Vanderbilts, "Jack" Astor, and the
Goulds, would immediately subscribe large sums upon his submitting the
proposition to them. He secured possession of my plans, and took me
to his house, which was a handsome brownstone structure standing in
beautiful grounds. Another evidence of wealth was that he always had a
smart carriage with liveried coachman waiting for him at our various
conferences, held frequently in the directors' room of the bank. He
had himself made the general manager, myself the president, and Hon.
William T. Malster, of Baltimore, the treasurer of the company. At
his suggestion we sent out a notification to our subscribers that
twenty-five per cent. of their subscriptions was due and payable.
Mr. Malster was president of the Columbia Dry Dock and Iron Works,
Baltimore, the company with which we had placed the contract for
building the _Argonaut_, and as he was a Baltimorean he had kindly
consented to serve as treasurer of my company. Everything now looked
rosy, and I gave my attention to preparing the detailed plans of the
_Argonaut_. One day the general manager came into the room and said,
"Now I have arranged for the sale of $100,000 worth of our stock." (He
was to get a certain percentage of the stock for selling it to his
friends, the Astors, Goulds, etc.) "So," he continued, "I want you to
go to Baltimore and get Mr. Malster to sign up a lot of this stock so
that we can make immediate delivery of it and get the money, and it
would also be advisable for you to have Mr. Malster sign some checks
in blank," the checks of the company requiring the signatures of both
president and treasurer.
I visited Baltimore and explained to Mr. Malster what our general
manager told me, and he said, "Well, Simon, you are a young man, and
I think an honest one, and I am willing to trust you. I will sign
these certificates, but don't you let them go out of your hands or
sign them yourself until you have some definite written obligations
on the part of those who are going to purchase this stock that they
will pay for it." I returned to New York and told Mr. H---- that I had
the certificates, etc., signed, and asked him when he would be ready
to deliver the money and receive the stock. He stated that his friend
"Jack" Astor was then out of town and he wanted him to be on the list
first and would wait until he returned. He said, "I will see him at
the first opportunity, but in the meantime you had better sign these
certificates in blank and leave them with me, as I will have to fill
out the names as he wants them, and I have had to agree to give him
the biggest part of my commission to get it started." At the same time
he told me that he would like to have a loan of a couple of thousand
dollars for a few days (this we had on deposit there in the bank in the
company's name). He said, as I had Mr. Malster's signature, I could
easily make him the loan and he would return it soon, for he had a
large piece of property which he had arranged the sale of, but there
were some back taxes due on it which he wanted to clear off before
turning over the deed. I told him that I could not make a loan of the
company's money. He then became very angry and said, "Well, if I did
not trust him to that extent he would not go to his friends or dispose
of the stock." He was a very pompous individual, wore gold eyeglasses,
and had a large acquaintance, formerly having been a business man of
standing.
The fact that he had been introduced to me by an official of the bank
led me to investigate him no further, but when he attempted to get the
company's funds and its stock in blank I started an investigation,
and found that the house that he was living in, and the horses and
carriages, had been secured from another unsuspecting individual much
older than myself in much the same manner. This individual had been
in business for many years, nevertheless the promoter induced him to
reorganize his successful business on a much larger capitalization.
The promoter made an agreement with this man to sell the stock of the
new company, and promised he would interest his friends, the Astors,
Goulds, and Vanderbilts. As a partial consideration for this he was
to receive this mans beautiful home and a certain percentage of the
stock. The man's wife having died, he did not care to live longer
in the house, so he agreed that the house should be given as a part
consideration, and as a guarantee of his delivery of the house and
stock as a part consideration on this promoter's agreement to float
the stock of the much larger capitalized new company, he had placed
both the controlling stock of the company and the house in escrow, and
had turned the possession of the house over to this promoter, who was
now our general manager, with the deeds of same to be held in escrow
and not to be finally recorded until the Goulds, Vanderbilts, Astors,
etc., had come into the new company. Hard times occurred about this
time, so he claimed, which prevented promised capitalists from coming
in, but, as Mr. H---- held the control of the company by holding the
control of the stock, he had himself elected an officer of the company
at a handsome salary and still held possession of this most beautiful
home without ever having paid a dollar. I merely recite this as a
warning to inventors to look out for the plausible New York promoter.
I also discovered that Mr. H---- had made application for patents, my
own patents not yet having been issued, with the idea of getting me
into interference in the Patent Office, and it was necessary for us to
threaten him with arrest and bring a suit against both himself and the
cashier--whom we now learned had known of his previous experiences and
expected to share in his profits this time--in order to get a legal
release so that we could proceed with the work.
Many of the troubles of inventors can be traced originally to
certain semi-professional men who call themselves patent attorneys.
There are two classes of patent attorneys, one class consisting of
conscientious, honorable gentlemen, who consider it their duty, when
an unsophisticated inventor comes before them with an idea which the
inventor considers new, to tell him the truth about his invention and
to inform him whether it is really an original invention or not, or
merely a slight modification of some old idea on which no protection
can be secured. There is another class of attorneys who have been
more properly termed patent sharks, who will get a patent on anything
brought to them; for by juggling words they are able to get claims
which mean nothing, except that they serve the purpose of getting the
attorneys their fees. Many an inventor has an idea which is original
with him but which may be as old as Bushnell's submarine or entirely
impractical. The patent shark will get him a patent on this, and the
inventor then thinks his fortune is made. He is very likely then to
sell his farm and go to New York and advertise in the papers that
he has a valuable invention, there to fall into the hands of some
unscrupulous promoter who secures all of his money without letting him
know that the patent is worthless; or if he happens to have a valuable
invention the promoter will in all probability arrange matters so that
he himself gets the cream and leaves the inventor a mere pittance.
Since the war began, and there has been the general editorial demand
by the papers of the country for some means to destroy or offset the
submarine menace, I have received hundreds of letters asking advice,
etc., regarding various devices. I have received visits from a number
of people who have come from long distances, some from the West, others
from Canada and from the South, to ask my opinion regarding certain
attachments to be applied to submarines or on devices to capture
submarines. Many of the ideas were old and some of them pitiful in
the fact that they showed such ignorance of the laws of nature and of
mechanics on the part of their projectors. One man sends me a copy
of his allowed patent with a letter from one of these patent sharks
acknowledging the receipt of final payment of a considerable amount
for his having received an allowance of his patent. I will, without
betraying the name, quote in part from his letter:
I would kindly ask if you would take hearing from me and take
notice of my new invention, which is called the Power Transmitting
Mechanism. The machine is started by spring or batteries; the
first start is the spin of the fly-wheel; the fly-wheel pumps on
the handle of the jack: one revolution to the one pound on the
fly-wheel drives the handle of the jack back and forth. The jack
will throw the crank one revolution with ninety-seven pounds. The
jack is the result of multiplying power, and the jacks can be used
in the same position as any and all cylinders. This machine will
nicely furnish you the power for your undersea liner. No fuel is
needed....
Now anyone can see that this proposition is nothing more or less
than an impractical proposition mechanically, and that it is on the
perpetual-motion order, yet this patent shark mulcts the poor man of a
considerable sum to secure him some kind of a worthless patent. He is
likely to expend much further sums in trying to get it on the market. A
patent lawyer of that stamp should be put in jail for fraud, and should
not be permitted to practise in an honorable profession.
I have already recited my own difficulties in attracting the interest
of the United States Government to my work, and I call attention to
the fact that it required many years of persistent endeavor and the
expenditure of vast sums of money furnished by patriotic individuals,
and also the recognition of my devices by several foreign governments,
before our own government recognized any merit in my work. That has
been the experience of almost every American inventor, so far as I
am aware. We have seen how Bushnell was derided and driven from his
home; and that Robert Fulton received no recognition from his home
government, and that the only recompense he ever received for his
submarine work was from the British Government. Strangely, the money
paid him was not for the purpose of enabling him to develop his
invention, but rather to suppress his inventive genius. Ericsson could
get no recognition or assistance from the government when he presented
his design of the _Monitor_. She was built by private capital, and her
builders assumed all the risk, and it is stated that at the time she
fought the _Merrimac_ and helped to save the United States from being
divided internally, she was on a builder's trial and had not been
accepted or paid for by the government. All readers of the life of
Ericsson are familiar with the lack of consideration he received from
the naval authorities of the United States at that time, and that his
epoch-making invention was derided as a "cheese-box on a raft." It was
strange that he received such little consideration, as at the time of
his arrival in America he was an engineer of note and while still a
young man had built the wonderful canals of Sweden. I had never really
appreciated Ericsson's great engineering ability until I made a journey
over these canals, which are virtually carried up over mountains, and
offer one of the most interesting European trips a tourist can make.
Maxim had to go to England and Hotchkiss to France to get their guns
adopted. Sir Hiram Maxim told me of the heartbreaking time he spent
in his native country, America--he was born in Maine--trying to get
his inventions properly developed, and the lack of consideration he
received here by our own government officers, while in England, on the
contrary, he was received with open arms. The late King Edward visited
him, and the English took up his invention and knighted him.
The Wright Brothers' first recognition and the first dollar they ever
received as profits in their years of experimental effort came from
France. I remember well when Wilbur Wright came to France with his
flying machine and secured the recognition that the Wright Brothers had
not been able to secure in the United States, their native country. The
Wright Brothers and their and our own European representative, Mr. Hart
O. Berg, occupied for a time one of the rooms in our suite of offices
in Regent Street, London, as their headquarters, and I am therefore
familiar with some of their difficulties in getting recognition in this
country.
It has been said that Americans invent and the Europeans develop.
This statement seems to be borne out in fact, so far as our military
inventions at least are concerned. From the time the Wrights first
introduced the flying machine in Europe all the important countries
over there have been consistently assisting inventors in improving the
construction of the planes and machinery for driving them, while our
own country has stood almost at a standstill. Our government gave no
aid to foster this American invention so that it could be gradually
developed, but rather our authorities made the first requirements so
difficult to fulfil that there was no incentive to work; which is a
mistake often made by men with a theoretical rather than a practical
education. A practical man may evolve something radically new in the
arts or sciences, but to get it introduced into the government service
it must first be passed upon and approved by men who at the country's
expense have received, for the most part, a purely theoretical
education; and nine times out of ten these men get some additional
theories of their own which they insist must be incorporated in the
machine or apparatus, and thus make it impossible of operation or delay
its accomplishment. It is probably due to this cause that we are now
forced to go to France for plans of our aeroplanes and their driving
machinery to enable us to compete with the Germans' machines.
What is the reason for this lamentable state of affairs in respect to
American military inventions? I believe that I can partially explain
it. I believe it is because our army and navy officers are too busy
with the routine of their profession to give the necessary time to a
thorough investigation of devices other than those with which they
are forced to become familiar by their training. I believe that there
is not a single fundamental invention which has emanated from an army
or navy officer during his service, although it is true that such
men have made some improvements upon devices in their hands, based
upon working experience. Their education and routine require them to
be well-informed as to the _proved_ devices of which they make use
in the service. On looking over the volume of text-books, rules and
regulations covering in the most minute details all the methods of
construction, tests of strength, chemical analyses, etc., with which
officers are obliged to become familiar, I can fully appreciate the
fact that they are too highly educated in the knowledge of accepted
devices to be able to find time to look into the future.
I believe that the present Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels,
in his creation of a civilian board of advisers to the navy to pass
upon new inventions of value to the navy, has taken an important
step in the protection of this country; the creation of this board I
consider one of the greatest achievements of the present administration.
The few inventions which have gained sufficient early recognition and
have received governmental aid in their development have usually been
forced on the Army or Navy by either political or financial interests.
The intrigue and lobbying conducted in Washington to secure exclusive
privileges would make volumes of interesting and spicy reading, and
it is possible that the knowledge of these well-known intrigues makes
officers very chary in recommending or taking up devices that may
appear to have merit. The usual answer to inventors of untried devices
who offer their plans to the government has been, "Well, if you try
it out and it proves successful, we will then consider it"; and in
such a case should the inventor have no means or financial backing the
invention is lost to the United States and is adopted abroad.
This policy is "penny wise and pound foolish" when it so directly
affects the safety of the nation. I was informed by Mr. Otto Exius,
the managing director of the great Krupp Works in Germany, that the
Imperial German Government has followed a far different method in
fostering inventions that might be of benefit to the state. Mr. Exius
informed me that when they undertook the development of a new invention
for the purposes of national defence the government paid them for the
cost of all material used and allowed them a sufficient percentage over
labor costs to cover their overhead, plus a fair amount of profit.
This probably accounts for the fact that Germany to-day is far ahead
of us in her development of engines for the military submarine. There
is no gainsaying the fact that the policy of our government has been
to make up an ideally perfect weapon and then invite manufacturers to
bid for the work. They have thus thrown the burden of development upon
individual firms, many of whom have been forced into bankruptcy in
their patriotic desire to furnish acceptable devices to the government.
We have the inventive genius in this country to _create and originate_
new machines and new methods of manufacture. In most commercial and
industrial lines we are able to maintain a leading position, but in
devices designed for the national defence we originate, and other
nations develop and profit. Had we supported our inventors and held
within this country as far as possible the knowledge of their devices,
and withheld the secrets of their work from foreign powers, as indeed
we should have, the United States to-day would be in a position of
military effectiveness very different from that in which we are found.
All this is due to the fact that the government does not foster and
protect our newly created devices, and to-day we are behind the
continental powers in our gunnery, our airplanes, in our dirigibles,
and in our submarine engines, as well as in many other auxiliaries
necessary to our national protection.
I feel that it lies within the province of the civilian board to
correct the mistakes in our governmental policy, provided, of course,
that Congress makes suitable appropriations to enable it to carry on
investigations in a proper manner and to protect the inventors who
submit new and original ideas. At the time Secretary Daniels created
the board I wrote him, in part, as follows:
"I notice by to-day's _New York Herald_ that you are proposing to
appoint an 'advisory board of civilian inventors for a Bureau of
Invention and Development,' to be created in the Navy Department,
and that you have asked Mr. Thomas A. Edison to be the chairman of
said board.
"I wish to congratulate you upon this conception. I believe such a
board, if its work is properly systematized, can be made of great
and permanent value to the nation.
"Many illustrations could be found in which other nations have been
the first to take up and reap the benefit from American inventions.
It is doubtful if Morse, Edison, Bell, the Wrights, or any other
pioneer American inventors have received any reward whatever from
many countries whose own citizens have grown rich and prosperous
by taking up and manufacturing American inventions without giving
consideration to them.
"When I first submitted my plans of a submarine boat to the Navy
Department in 1893 I had no company back of me and did not make
a proposition to the department to build a boat. I suggested to
them that I would coöperate with the Navy Department in a way
satisfactory to them.
"My hope was, at that time, as I was only a youngster, to receive
some sort of a commission in the United States Navy and to be
placed in charge of the development of the submarine, but the
submarine was a discredited machine in those days, and after I had
spent several days in trying to interest the authorities at that
time in my proposition I failed, and felt very much discouraged,
and did not again return to the Navy Department until called there
in 1901 by a telegram from Senator Hale, who was then chairman of
the Senate Navy Committee.
"Since that time I have been offered a splendid position with very
large financial backing if I would take charge of the development
of submarines for a foreign government. This I refused to do,
because I had a natural desire to receive some recognition in my
own country.
"The principal aim and ambition in my life has been to be able to
make sufficient money to endow an institution for the protection of
American inventors.
"I tried to interest Enoch Pratt in this scheme twenty-three years
ago in Baltimore. I have given a great deal of thought to such an
institution. It does not look now as if I should be able to carry
out my plans. If I had had sufficient financial backing in the
early days of my experiments and development of the submarine to
have protected myself fully by foreign patents, all of the European
countries to-day would be paying me royalties, as they are all
using a number of features in their boats which I originated.
"While I regret that the probabilities are that I will not be
able to carry out my ambition, your proposition would, if carried
out, go a long way toward improving the opportunities of American
inventors to secure proper recognition of their inventive genius so
far as they could be applied to the protection of the nation.
"I can, however, foresee certain oppositions to this scheme: first,
there will be opposition from the vested interests who have held
for years control of certain lines of manufactured articles and
material used in the service.
"The scheme would also fail unless it would be possible for this
board to secure the entire confidence of the American inventors.
Very few inventors have had large business experience or know how
to protect themselves from the various parasites who thrive upon
them.
"A man gets an idea--it may be an old one, but he considers it
original--and becomes obsessed with the idea that he has made a
great discovery. He may be a farmer, a mechanic, a clergyman, or
any other form of good American citizen, but not an experienced
business man. In many cases he becomes a prey to people who live
entirely upon their wits and the inexperience of others.
"First, if he is unfortunate enough to fall in the hands of an
unscrupulous patent attorney, he will get all the money he can out
of him by securing him a worthless patent. Probably 75 per cent. of
the patents issued are not worth the paper they are written upon.
After securing the patents he will then give up his farm or his
position, take his savings and go to New York or some other city,
and fall into the hands of an unscrupulous promoter, who makes the
inventor believe he can place his patents, or, if he has a good
invention and falls into the hands of an unscrupulous promoter, the
invention is taken away from him, or he is given a mere pittance
for it.
"I know of one case where an inventor of one of the most successful
typewriting machines on the market, who spent his life in
developing it, is receiving the munificent sum of eleven cents
from each machine as a royalty. There is a large number of these
machines being manufactured, and of course he is receiving a
comfortable income even at this small rate, but the promoter who
had nothing to do with its origination and who only happened to
know the capitalists to go to, and the capitalists, are receiving a
princely income.
"So many instances of inventors being deprived of a fair
remuneration for their inventions have occurred that as a class it
will be found that many of them will hesitate to submit their ideas
to the board.
"I have received many letters from inventors throughout the country
who had all sorts of schemes for improving submarine boats, for
detecting their presence under water, for destroying them, for
protecting battleships against them, etc. In some cases they were
accompanied by plans and descriptions, and they are usually old
ideas, in many cases already patented. In other instances I have
received letters stating that they had ideas which they would
submit to me if I would pass upon them or coöperate with them in
developing or introducing them to the Navy Department. My practice
has always been to refuse to consider any device or invention
unless the inventor had made application for a patent, as I did
not want to be accused of taking another man's ideas, as he might
submit to me ideas similar to my own and which I might have already
had either patents pending in the Patent Office for same, or had
made similar plans upon which I might expect to take out a patent
at some future time.
"This feeling of uncertainty may cause inventors to hesitate to
send their ideas in, but I think that could be overcome by having
certain rules of procedure; that is, any idea submitted must be
put into form, sworn to as original by the man who submitted it,
which must be attested by witnesses. It could then be sent to
examiners--first, to find out if it was an original idea; second,
to find out if it was a mechanically operative idea; and, third, to
find out if there was any need for such a device.
"I think your naming Mr. Edison as the head of such a bureau will
go a long ways toward creating confidence in the mind of the
inventors, that they would receive proper consideration. Most every
one knows of Mr. Edison's perseverance in his early days in getting
his inventions upon the market. A great many people know that
he himself has not received a fraction of the reward that he is
entitled to because of his great inventions. He is, without doubt,
the greatest inventor the United States has produced. While I have
never met Mr. Edison personally, I have always been a great admirer
of him, because he is the man most responsible for raising the
title of 'inventor' from that of crank to that of honor. I was such
an admirer of him in my youth that I named my son after him. I do
not think you could have made a better choice than he to head this
bureau.
"If the bureau is organized, permit me to suggest that there should
be some definite inducement held out to the inventors in the way
of a royalty compensation or some other form of compensation for
such ideas as the government might take up and utilize. The plan
which I had in mind for my inventors' institution was to erect
buildings, machine shops, laboratories, with a staff of patent
experts, draftsmen, and engineers, so that the crude idea could
first be investigated to see if it was original, then passed on
to the engineers, who would coöperate with the inventor, and they
would see that proper plans were made covering the proper kinds
and strength of material to accomplish the purpose, and then it
would be sent to the shops, all this work being charged up to the
invention, or to the inventor if he was in a position to pay for
it, at cost.
"The institution would, in consideration of its placing all
these facilities available to the inventor, receive a certain
percentage for its part of the work. In that way a properly endowed
institution would probably be self-supporting. It might be possible
to work that idea into your scheme. Take, as an illustration,
the submarine boats. Something new and revolutionary might be
introduced in the way of propulsive means which would enable
submarines to make very much greater speed, both on the surface and
submerged. As soon as the submarine has the speed of a battleship,
it will be able to drive the battleship from the seas. Without
battleships to cover the landing of troops from transports, no
invasion of one country by another country, from the sea, can be
made. Therefore, no more wars between maritime countries.
"Such a propulsive means, therefore, will become a great and
valuable adjunct to any nation. If the government developed such
a machine it would be only right for them to pay a royalty to the
inventor. On the other hand, this same machine would undoubtedly be
very valuable for a great many other industrial purposes. If it was
used for other purposes, it would only be right that the inventor
pay the government in return a royalty or percentage of his profits
in consideration of the government having developed it for him.
"I hope you will not think I am officious in offering these
suggestions. Having given so much thought to the matter in the line
as above referred to, I felt that you were entitled to have my
thoughts for what they were worth.
"I certainly hope you will be able to get the support of Congress,
the naval officers, and the inventors in carrying this scheme
through to a successful conclusion, which, if done, I believe
will be one of the greatest constructive pieces of legislation
accomplished in years."
A larger institution along the same lines might well be endowed by a
number of America's bright business men who have made fortunes based
upon the ideas of some poor, unsophisticated inventor who has not been
brought up to worship wealth, but who had an original idea of value to
the world and to the individuals who had the business capacity to get
the money out of it.
Original ideas are creations, and the creation of ideas may become
possible by constant study and research. In this class are all the
professional inventors; but many good ideas are spontaneous and occur
in brains not educated along mechanical or scientific lines. The
establishment of such an institution as above outlined would conserve
these spontaneous inventions for the benefit of the nation, as well as
assist the professional inventor in his research.